I just won a game with 24 Hullbreaker Horrors in play. Is that too strong for Bracket 3?
In the last game with my playgroup today, I played my [[Fire Lord Azula]] deck.
I got her out on turn four, then cast [[Electrodominance]] during combat on turn five to cast an [[Ember Island Production]] targeting Azula, giving me two more Azulas.
On turn six, I cast [[Hullbreaker Horror]]. With 3 Azulas attacking, I ended up with four Hullbreakers in play and bounced four of my opponents’ threats by casting an [[Arcane Signet]] in my second main phase, after which I had no cards left in hand.
Being the biggest threat, I somehow survived until the next turn with 13 life left, but two of my opponents had built up huge token armies by then (around 20–30 tokens each).
Luckily, I drew one of my instant-speed card draw spells ([[Moment of Truth]]), which started a chain of card draw during combat. I ended up bouncing even more threats, then started bouncing tokens by playing a flash enabler into four Sol Rings (copied by the Azulas), followed by a kicked [[Rite of Replication]], which left me with a total of 24 Hullbreaker Horrors.
My opponents conceded there, but I also still had a Lightning Bolt and [[Swan Song]] available to disrupt any board wipe attempts while continuing to bounce the remaining tokens.
Even though the last turn was pretty long and complicated to play out, I had a lot of fun with it, and honestly part of the reason I’m writing this is just to brag about the interaction. At the same time, I’m worried that the deck naturally creates oppressive board states too early and might not really belong in bracket 3.
I like playing the deck this way: copying either Hullbreaker Horror or a [[Rottenmouth Viper]] while running lots of interaction and card draw. A win on turn 7 doesn’t sound excessively fast to me. At the same time, I don’t think the deck is strong enough for bracket 4, and I’m not even sure I could consistently play it out this way in that bracket. Our playgroup currently only plays in brackets 2 and 3.
My friends were aware from the start that Azula could become a huge threat, but they didn’t have the removal to stop my plan. Afterwards, they told me the end of the game wasn’t very fun for them, although nobody was salty about it. One of the token players even said he could have won on his next turn with a life gain combo if I had drawn a land instead of card draw, but I’m still unsure whether this was actually an unbalanced matchup.
Should I just think of this as a series of lucky draws and an optimal round or should I downgrade the deck? After getting 3 Azulas out on turn 5, it already felt very difficult to stop.
Decklist: https://archidekt.com/decks/20781847/azula_flash
(Don't mind the crazy expensive dual lands, my playgroup proxies basically all decks we play entirely and I just put in a couple cards that I own as well.)